The Willful Widow (4 page)
Slowly it was borne in on the marquess that he had raised himself an excellent companion, and from the time that Diana was sixteen, he began to notice his daughter and—and as much as a man of his reclusive habits could do—took pleasure in her company. Also at that point, he made another surprising discovery: that his daughter had learned to run his household without the least bit of help from him and had been the nominal head of Buckland for some time. The few servants who took care of Buckland for their erratic master had felt sorry for the lonely little girl and often invited her to sit and talk while they completed their tasks. By the time Lady Diana's father began to recognize her as a presence, she had gained considerable knowledge as to the functioning of Buckland. She had learned household management from Cook and the housekeeper, Mrs. Tottington. From Mr. Tottington, who was the butler, the steward, and the general factotum, she had picked up everything else in the administration of the estate, which, according to him, was not all that it should be; but without the interest of the master, his hands were tied. Gradually, the young lady of the house began to discover that ancient as her title was and comfortable as the manor could be in its own shabby way, Lady Diana's inheritance was less than one might expect from such a place as Buckland. The fields had run fallow as the marquess was not interested in farming them or paying others to do so. He was such an indifferent landlord, that the rents he could charge the tenants in the few cottages on the estate were minimum. "For to put it to you straight, my lady," Tottington had been forced 32
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to admit one day, "he is generating precious little income, and has spent most of what was left to him by his father on building that library of his."
Diana had promised to do what she could to improve things. She had gotten her father to spend some of his remaining inheritance on repairs to the cottages, but it had been too little too late. The marquess, emerging for once from his perpetually abstracted state, had taken stock of his affairs and realized that unless he were to do something, and do it soon—even though his estate was not entailed—his daughter would be left with nothing except the rapidly decaying manor and some unfilled fields.
Casting about for a solution, he had determined that he should marry her to someone who could provide for her. That decided, he suddenly began to take an interest in local affairs. Much to his neighbors' surprise, he was soon often seen in the village or attending church with his daughter—both locales where he had been only the rarest of visitors. The marquess had dimly remembered from days gone by that Lord Hatherill had had a son just a little before Diana was born. Inquiries revealed that the Viscount Hatherill was still unmarried, and further investigation proved that his widowed mother was hoping that he could be made to offer for someone who could act as a settling influence on him. Armed with this information, the marquess called on the Hatherills, who had been delighted by his proposition. Even Ferdie himself was taken with the idea. A good-natured, but feckless youth, he was uneasily aware that his duty lay in choosing a wife and providing a Hatherill heir, especially now 33
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that his father was gone. Such a course of action seemed a most uncomfortable fate to one who spent his days drifting pleasantly from one sporting event to another and his evenings at the gambling table. He had known however, that sooner or later his mother would make it impossible to avoid the inevitable marriage issue. So he was rather pleased that she had selected someone as comfortable as Diana, a girl he had known all his life, and someone so accustomed to a quiet existence in the country that she was unlikely to demand that he take her to town.
Nor had Diana objected. She had always liked Ferdie, for who could not enjoy being around a person so determined to take pleasure from life? If he did not possess the intelligence of the Marquess of Buckland, he was at least better acquainted with worldly affairs. Diana had never had any friends other than her father, and certainly Ferdie, amiable fellow that he was, paid more attention to her than her abstracted parent ever had. Completely unaware of the existence of such things as novels from the circulating library, she had never cherished any hopes of falling in love. The hope of added companionship and the freedom from financial worry that life with Ferdie would bring offered a pleasant change from her lonely existence at Buckland. At first, Diana had enjoyed herself thoroughly. She quite delighted in having Ferdie's mother and younger sister to talk to, so much that Ferdie's frequent absences in town or at race meetings did not distress her, while the prospect of waking up every morning in a place where everything was not crying out for repair was delightful.
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Diana would have been more than content to spend her days in the country, but her mother-in-law would not hear of it. Within six months of her marriage, the young viscountess was being introduced to the
ton,
which, confronted with an attractive newcomer who was already married and thus posed no threat to eligible bachelors or matchmaking mamas, welcomed her graciously.
For her part, Diana was less impressed with the Upper Ten Thousand then they were with her. After a life spent pursuing her own interests, she found much of the fashionable routine both constricting and dull. One ball or rout was so very much like another, and the latest
on-dit
so very similar to the last. But she kept these opinions to herself so well that no one could ever have suspected her of harboring such seditious thoughts.
Besides, there were definite compensations for having left the country. She attended the theater and the opera so frequently that Ferdie was heard to complain in his goodnatured way, "Don't see what there is to like in a bunch of fellows standing onstage screaming their heads off. You won't catch me listening to it, but if it pleases you, go all you like." In fact, Ferdie had been pleasantly surprised at his biddable bride. She was less demanding than his mother, and could always be counted upon to make excuses for him if a riotous evening left him a bit under the weather the next day. She was a taking thing and well liked by everyone, a fact which he could see had elevated his consequence even among his sporting friends. All in all, it was quite agreeable to have someone watching out for one and making sure that life 35
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was comfortable as Diana did. His mother always made him feel guiltily aware of his shortcomings—a tendency to play deep and to bet on anything and everything—but his wife never did, nor did she ever hint in the slightest way that she would have appreciated more than the occasional escort he offered her to some of the
ton
functions. All in all, Ferdie couldn't remember when life had been so pleasant. If only he could hit a winning streak to pay back some of the money he owed, but he felt certain that his luck was bound to change sooner or later.
On her side, Diana, though not as pleased as Ferdie, was well satisfied. Having looked after one helpless male for most of her life, she moved easily into taking care of another. He was far more companionable than her father, whom she now saw so rarely that when he succumbed to pleurisy a year after Diana's marriage, she hardly knew he was gone. And in many ways attending to Ferdie was much easier. He was like an overgrown child. If he arrived home in his cups singing at the top of his lungs and weaving from one solid object to another, he was invariably smilingly apologetic. If he had a disastrous evening at the gaming tables, he was always blithely certain he would recoup his losses. As time went on, Ferdie actually began to enjoy taking his wife to some of the routs and ridottos that were such a necessary part of any fashionable gentleman's existence, and Diana always took pleasure in his escort, for he was such genial company.
However, increasingly his customary exuberance had begun to fall away, and a worried frown was often seen to flit 36
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across the viscount's jovial countenance. "Nothing, 'tis nothing," he would always disclaim quickly when taxed with this unusual state of affairs, but a hunted look had begun to lurk at the back of his eyes that Diana could not fathom until several days after his groom had brought his master's body home.
Ferdie, in a desperate attempt to keep up his spirits and improve his fortunes had challenged his closest crony, Anthony Washburne, to a curricle race, betting a hundred pounds that he would make it to Brighton before his friend did. A stray dog had blighted all his hopes and turned Diana into a widow by ambling into the road as Ferdie came around a particularly sharp corner at a slapping pace. Once again, Diana had discovered, as she had when examining accounts at Buckland, that she was left with nothing so much as a pile of debts. She had been aghast. How could somebody have lost so much money in so little time—especially someone like Ferdie, who never seemed to put that much effort into anything? Even his mother, more conversant with her son's ruinous tendencies, had been appalled.
The disastrous state of Ferdie's fiscal affairs was left to the new heir, a distant cousin, to sort out and to try to recoup the estate's finances—which, Diana, already left with Buckland and all its attendant headaches, handed over to him with relief. The new viscount, a sober pleasant man, was more distressed to think of the entail depriving the dowager viscountess and her daughter-in-law of a home, but Ferdie's mother had been only too happy to go live with her newly 37
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married daughter, while Diana had withdrawn contentedly enough to the house on Brook Street, which Ferdie, with uncharacteristic forethought, had left to her. As it was one of the few possessions untouched by creditors, Diana was able to take up residence quietly and comfortably while renting out the fields at Buck-land to a local fanner in an effort to recover some of the estate's losses over the years. Only the question of companionship remained, for it was unthinkable that a young widow should remain all by herself in London, regardless of the fact that to all intents and purposes, she had lived virtually alone all her life. With the exception of Boney, who had been a constant companion since he had been sent as a twelfth birthday present by Aunt Seraphina, Diana had often gone for days with nothing more than desultory intercourse with the servants, while her father had immured himself in the library. She had become accustomed to solitude and since coming to town, had discovered that much of the social interaction she had missed was merely vapid conversation and empty-headed gossip.
The task now was to find someone who would satisfy the dictates of society without threatening Diana's sanity or independence. It had actually been Boney who solved the problem, for one morning as Diana, gazing blankly out the window, had wondered out loud what to do, he had flown over, perched on her shoulder, and begun nibbling her ear. His mistress had stroked him absentmindedly. "Yes, Boney, you have been a good and faithful friend since Aunt Seraphina sent you, but somehow I do not think you would 38
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satisfy the
ton's
idea of suitable companionship. Good heavens. Aunt Seraphina!" And with this happy thought, Diana had rushed to her escritoire and penned an invitation to her father's one remaining relative.
That lady's reply had been gratifyingly swift in arriving. She would be enchanted to come, she wrote. Since her dear Thomas's death, she quite lacked for any intelligent conversation and felt certain that her powers of rational discourse were deteriorating rapidly. This was a most delightful opportunity to put a stop to their further decline, and she looked forward to seeing her great-niece, who, she trusted, had changed since she had last seen her ten years ago.
In what seemed no time at all. Lady Thomas Walden's elegant traveling carriage had pulled up in front of the house in Brook Street, and a tall, woman, still handsome despite her gray hair and her advanced years, alighted to walk briskly up the steps where Finchley was holding open the door for her.
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Greeting her aunt in the drawing room, Diana reflected that she had changed very little since they had last seen each other. The dark eyes still sparkled with penetrating intelligence softened by a gleam of humor. In her youth the long straight nose, determined chin, and prominent cheekbones had robbed her of any pretense to beauty, but now they lent character. Hers was a distinguished face, and one that radiated vitality and interest in the world around her. It was not difficult to see why she had been the scholarly Marquess of Buckland's favorite relation. And he had been hers.
Unappreciated in a household of a father who had longed for a boy and a mother who had wished equally for a dainty feminine daughter, Seraphina had been neither, and as such, largely ignored. The only person who had paid her any attention at all had been a local squire's son, Thomas Walden, with whom she had played and ridden in the forests near her home.
Blessed with a bright inquiring mind and a keen understanding, Thomas had felt as out of place in his family as she did in hers, for the squire, a bluff genial man, had no patience with books or learning and did his best to discourage his son from indulging in such wasteful pursuits. Fortunately Seraphina's father possessed a remarkably fine library, untouched since his father had died. Unbeknownst to adults on both sides, the two had indulged their passion for 40
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knowledge to the top of their bent. And it was only natural that such close companions should develop a deep affection for each other that, when it finally came to their notice, shocked and alarmed both families. Thomas was instantly packed off to India, and Seraphina was dragged to London for a disastrous Season.